Re: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited

2010-01-18 Thread RALPH PISCIOTTA
Hi Luke Christy,
I am wiring a SIP house, and the plans called for hanging a fan on the ceiling. 
 I contacted the manufacturer and they suggested cutting out a rectangular 
section of the OSB board that extends well beyond the dimension of my ceiling 
mounted round metal box.  Then with a tool called a hot knife, the Styrofoam 
was melted away.  Next we gouged out more Styrofoam, several inches beyond the 
cut out and slipped some 2x wood blocks into the hole and screwed along the 
perimeter. Next screw the OSB cutout back in place, and now there is a large 
area to screw into for your mounting foot. I hope this makes sense.
Ralph Pisciotta
Willits Electric






From: Luke Christy sgsrenewab...@gmail.com
To: re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org
Sent: Sun, January 17, 2010 8:24:49 PM
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited

Esteemed Wrenches,

We have a PV job in the works that will require mounting racking to several 
roofs that consist of asphalt shingles laid over SIP panels. The panels are 
standard 10 nominal thickness, with 9-1/4 of foam sandwiched by 1/2 OSB on 
each side. The rub is that the underside of the panels will be the finished 
ceiling (with 5/8 of wood over the OSB). 

I found a couple of threads in the archives discussing mounting to SIPs, but 
most comments suggest  through-bolting, and that is not an attractive option in 
this case due to the finished ceiling directly beneath.

The roofs in question are triangular in plan, and are fairly small (~ 15' x 15' 
x 21')

Does anyone have experience with mounting directly to the outer skin of a SIP 
panel? 
Suggestions on the best way to approach this problem would be appreciated. 

Thanks in advance.


Luke Christy 

 NABCEP Certified PV Installerâ„¢: Certification #031409-25 (Luke Christy)
 CoSEIA Certified PV Installer (Luke Christy)

Solar Gain Services, LLC
Monte Vista, CO
 sgsrenewab...@gmail.com
 719.588.3044


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Re: [RE-wrenches] kW/MW v. kWh/MWh

2010-01-18 Thread Peter Parrish
Just a pedagogical note. Since I have been teaching PV Installation now
fairly continuously since July of this year. The kW/kWh problem is pretty
pervasive: I even slip once and a while. Here is the problem as I see it.

 

Most basic units like mass, distance, energy are simply defined: kilogram,
meter and joule. The rates of change are derived: kilometers per hour, meter
per second, joule per second (watt).

 

The basic units related to energy (at least within the electrical utility
and related fields) are defined first with the rate of change: watts (or
joule per second). Then the other quantities are derived from the watt:
watt-hour (energy), watts/meter-squared (insolation) and the like.

 

Well that's just a fact, and in my classes I drive that point home early and
often - so as to minimize confusion down the road. To enliven things a bit,
I also add a little history.

 

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a lot of work done trying to
understand the nature of and interrelationship between mechanical work, heat
and then later electricity. The early work focused on the rate at which work
could be done, and concepts like horsepower and later watts were used and
compared. An exception to this trend is the unit of heat the British Thermal
Unit (BTU) and the rate BTU/hr.

 

Another interesting fact: since the beginning of time (wo)man has invented
various units of measure to assist them in carrying out business. The rule
of thumb: invent a unit of measure that can be used for the puposes at hand,
that is convenient (gives you the level of accuracy you need) and doesn't
use zeros (invented in India in 800 AD) or the decimal point (an even later
invention).

 

Some examples:

(1) A cord of wood (128 cu-ft) is rougly the amount that can fit in the
back of a wagon (or large pick up truck). In New England, you can
sustainably harvest about 1 cord per acre (if I remember correctly). Whether
you cut your own wood or order it from someone else, you would probably
think for example in terms of 3 or 4 cords of wood (not 3.5 cords).

(2) A bushel is a convenient measure of fruit and vegetables, about a
cubic foot. If you needed bake a few of pies and have some left over for
eating, you might buy a bushel of apples. 

(3) A peck is one fourth the volume, maybe more convenient for nuts and
berries.

(4) A hand (4 inches) is used to measure how tall a horse is. An average
horse is about 16 hands; a pony 14 hands or less and a big draft horse could
be 19-20 hands.  

(5) When talking to a customer about their usage per day, the unit of
energy kWh is similarly convenient. A small family might use 10 kWh/day and
a larger family might use 35 kWh/day. In either case 1 kWh/day one way or
another won't make much difference in designing a system that will eliminate
their bill. I must admit that with larger commercial accounts we would be
looking at numbers like 150 kWh/day and we start using zeros to reflect the
fact that we aren't particularly interested in measuring energy usage to a
precison of less than 1%. In any event, the kWh is much more convenient than
the Joule: there are 3,600,000 Joules in 1 kWh. Of course we could shorten
the notation to MJ and now we would have a unit of energy measure that fits
the criteria: typical usage and the level of precision doesn't rquire zeros
or decimal points. So the small household might use 36 MJ/day and the large
household 126 MJ/day. Perhaps one day, we could switch from kWh to MJ!

 

Happy MLK Jr. Day to everyone! NOW what do I do to keep busy?

 

- Peter

Peter T. Parrish, Ph.D., President
California Solar Engineering, Inc.
820 Cynthia Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90065
CA Lic. 854779, NABCEP Cert. 031806-26
 mailto:peter.parr...@calsolareng.com peter.parr...@calsolareng.com  
Ph 323-258-8883, Mobile 323-839-6108, Fax 323-258-8885


 

  _  

From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org
[mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of William
Dorsett
Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:38 PM
To: RE-wrenches; Dan Fink
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] kW/MW v. kWh/MWh

 


But you know they keep talking about the potential contribution that plug-in
hybrids might have for storing energy for utility support. Most of our
systems have hugely larger capacity than current Prius'. And I suspect that
many RE system owners will want some backup, especially if they are
compensated for installing it.

Bill Dorsett 
SunwrightS
1715 Leavenworth
Manhattan, KS 66502
Home/Office 785/539=1956
Cell 785/564-2583
wmdors...@sbcglobal.net

See Amory Lovins July 08 on Charlie Rose
http://www.charlierose.com/guests/amory-lovins

--- On Sat, 1/16/10, Dan Fink dan...@hughes.net wrote:


From: Dan Fink dan...@hughes.net
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] kW/MW v. kWh/MWh
To: RE-wrenches re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org
Date: Saturday, January 16, 2010, 8:51 PM

Hello Marco.
No d'oh!
Your assessment is correct; you can't store kilowatts of power, you *can*
store kilowatt hours 

Re: [RE-wrenches] EnPhase/Racking Best Fit

2010-01-18 Thread Dana Brandt
I'll second that! We had good luck with the little clips for the Enphase,
but there's a lot of opportunity for having to do a lot of work over again
if anything goes wrong.

This is my disappointment with the Clicksys in general. In my opinion, the
genious of the SolarMount is the T-bolt that allows you to install top
clamps as you go instead of having to slide everything down from the end of
the rail. Clicksys does away with this. When you add in the Enphase to the
Clicksys, you have a very non-flexible installation. All the top clamps have
to be in place before the inverters are installed. If you miss or break a
clamp you have to take all your inverters off and slide all the clips off to
get a new one in place.

Also on my list of why I'm underwhelmed by Clicksys is that with our 25lb
snow load here you need an attachment every 24. In my mind this makes them
only practical on standing seam roof.

I'm a big fan of Unirac, but I think they missed on this one.

Dana


Dana Brandt
Ecotech Energy Systems, LLC
www.ecotechenergy.com
d...@ecotechenergy.com
360.510.0433


On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 3:06 PM, solarepiph...@gmail.com wrote:

 Erika,

 I can tell you from experience that the Unirac Clicksys is NOT an ideal
 candidate for Enphase applications. The reason is that if you have a problem
 with a mounting clip that galls up or breaks, you have to disassemble the
 entire racks worth of sliders and microinverters in order to replace. The
 only way to slide on a replacement is from the end of the rail or a splice
 point. Really a pain.

 Take care,

 Eric Thomas
 Founder
 Solar Epiphany LLC
 Seattle
 Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

 -Original Message-
 From: re-wrenches-requ...@lists.re-wrenches.org
 Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:04:07
 To: re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org
 Subject: RE-wrenches Digest, Vol 3, Issue 63

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 Today's Topics:

   1. Re: trapeziod modules (William Dorsett)
   2. Re: enphase and racks (frenergy)
   3. Re: discharging Rolls batteries (Bruce Geddes)


 --

 Message: 1
 Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:58:29 -0800 (PST)
 From: William Dorsett wmdors...@sbcglobal.net
 To: RE-wrenches re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org,
jry...@netscape.com
 Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] trapeziod modules
 Message-ID: 691869.43614...@web81907.mail.mud.yahoo.com
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

 Jeff, Sharp is the only manufacturer I know of that puts out at least
 triangular modules that can come close to forming a trapezoid.

 Bill Dorsett
 SunwrightS
 1715 Leavenworth
 Manhattan, KS 66502
 Home/Office 785/539=1956
 Cell 785/564-2583
 wmdors...@sbcglobal.net

 See Amory Lovins July 08 on Charlie Rose
 http://www.charlierose.com/guests/amory-lovins

 --- On Fri, 1/15/10, Jeff Yago jry...@netscape.com wrote:


 From: Jeff Yago jry...@netscape.com
 Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] trapeziod modules
 To: RE-wrenches re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org
 Date: Friday, January 15, 2010, 9:27 PM


 I have a demonstration project that will require only a handfull of modules
 that need to form a round circle when grouped together.? I need a complete
 circle that will have a combined output of 400 to 600 watts, depending on
 module size.? I have seen several large modules this shape in recent
 articles about solar sun-flower shaped street lighting, but I do not need
 anything that large and its not for a street light application.? Anybody
 know a supplier that will sell in small quantities?

 Thanks,

 Jeff Yago
 jry...@netscape.com


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[RE-wrenches] SIPs

2010-01-18 Thread Dana
We did a project with SIPs roof and the owner /builder  theoretically contacted 
SIPS and they had them cut out and lay in 2 x 10s as a backing with a bonding 
agent to the foam [Not known what this was]  and then high temp ice and 
water shield and then the synthetic recycled roof material.

 

Has anyone else heard of this procedure? 

 

If so do you know what the bonding agent would be?

 

 

Dana Orzel

 

Great Solar Works, Inc

www.solarwork.com

E - d...@solarwork.com

V - 970.626.5253

F - 970.626.4140

C - 970.209.4076

 

I will be the shift in how the world uses power! - Dana Orzel

 

From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org 
[mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of RALPH PISCIOTTA
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 8:34 AM
To: RE-wrenches
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited

 

Hi Luke Christy,
I am wiring a SIP house, and the plans called for hanging a fan on the ceiling. 
 I contacted the manufacturer and they suggested cutting out a rectangular 
section of the OSB board that extends well beyond the dimension of my ceiling 
mounted round metal box.  Then with a tool called a hot knife, the Styrofoam 
was melted away.  Next we gouged out more Styrofoam, several inches beyond the 
cut out and slipped some 2x wood blocks into the hole and screwed along the 
perimeter. Next screw the OSB cutout back in place, and now there is a large 
area to screw into for your mounting foot. I hope this makes sense.
Ralph Pisciotta
Willits Electric

 

  _  

From: Luke Christy sgsrenewab...@gmail.com
To: re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org
Sent: Sun, January 17, 2010 8:24:49 PM
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited

Esteemed Wrenches,

 

We have a PV job in the works that will require mounting racking to several 
roofs that consist of asphalt shingles laid over SIP panels. The panels are 
standard 10 nominal thickness, with 9-1/4 of foam sandwiched by 1/2 OSB on 
each side. The rub is that the underside of the panels will be the finished 
ceiling (with 5/8 of wood over the OSB). 

 

I found a couple of threads in the archives discussing mounting to SIPs, but 
most comments suggest  through-bolting, and that is not an attractive option in 
this case due to the finished ceiling directly beneath.

 

The roofs in question are triangular in plan, and are fairly small (~ 15' x 15' 
x 21')

 

Does anyone have experience with mounting directly to the outer skin of a SIP 
panel? 

Suggestions on the best way to approach this problem would be appreciated. 

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

Luke Christy 

 NABCEP Certified PV Installerâ„¢: Certification #031409-25 (Luke Christy)
 CoSEIA Certified PV Installer (Luke Christy)

Solar Gain Services, LLC

Monte Vista, CO
 sgsrenewab...@gmail.com
 719.588.3044

 

 

 

 

 

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.725 / Virus Database: 270.14.148/2629 - Release Date: 01/17/10 
12:35:00

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Re: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited

2010-01-18 Thread frenergy
Alan,

Thanks for the correction, I did in fact use the blue 'roof grip 
screws' with neopreme washers provided by DPW for use in OSB.  I better go 
chug more Ginko.

Bill

Feather River Solar Electric
4291 Nelson St.
Taylorsville, CA  95983
  - Original Message - 
  From: Allan Sindelar 
  To: RE-wrenches 
  Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 10:46 PM
  Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited


  Just a note of caution here: Tech screws are Tek screws, which are 
essentially a sheet metal thread following a pilot drill point, on a hardened 
shank. They are intended for mounting only into metal, not wood; the drill 
point isn't designed to self-pilot into wood, and the drill section is too 
large in diameter for wood.


  ![endif]-- 
  Allan Sindelar
  al...@positiveenergysolar.com
  NABCEP Certified Photovoltaic Installer
  EE98J Journeyman Electrician
  Positive Energy, Inc.
  3201 Calle Marie
  Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507
  505 424-1112
  www.positiveenergysolar.com



  frenergy wrote: 
Luke,

Direct Power and Water has an optional mounting foot with five 
holes in it for what I think Jeff Randall there referred to as 'Tech' screws to 
use in the field between rafters. They are referred to as 'easy feet'.  It is 
designed to only attach into the roof decking, which I'm pretty sure only 
required 1/2 OSB.  He claims the same or better pullout values as one lag per 
regular foot...there may also be tighter spacing involved for the feet.  The 
choices are   1 1/2 or 3 long, has a self tapping point so no pre-drill.  Add 
some of the peel and stick mastic and it's a fast install.

Bill

Feather River Solar Electric
4291 Nelson St.
Taylorsville, CA  95983


  - Original Message - 
  From: Luke Christy 
  To: re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org 
  Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 8:24 PM
  Subject: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited


  Esteemed Wrenches, 


  We have a PV job in the works that will require mounting racking to 
several roofs that consist of asphalt shingles laid over SIP panels. The panels 
are standard 10 nominal thickness, with 9-1/4 of foam sandwiched by 1/2 OSB 
on each side. The rub is that the underside of the panels will be the finished 
ceiling (with 5/8 of wood over the OSB). 


  I found a couple of threads in the archives discussing mounting to SIPs, 
but most comments suggest  through-bolting, and that is not an attractive 
option in this case due to the finished ceiling directly beneath.


  The roofs in question are triangular in plan, and are fairly small (~ 15' 
x 15' x 21')


  Does anyone have experience with mounting directly to the outer skin of a 
SIP panel? 
  Suggestions on the best way to approach this problem would be 
appreciated. 


  Thanks in advance.




  Luke Christy 

   NABCEP Certified PV Installerâ„¢: Certification #031409-25 (Luke 
Christy)
   CoSEIA Certified PV Installer (Luke Christy)

  Solar Gain Services, LLC
  Monte Vista, CO
   sgsrenewab...@gmail.com
   719.588.3044













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[RE-wrenches] Walt Ratterman

2010-01-18 Thread Marco Mangelsdorf
I heard that fellow Wrench Walt Ratterman is MIA in Haiti.

 

Anyone have any news?

 

marco

 

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Re: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited

2010-01-18 Thread Jeff Clearwater

Good Folks,

We did a job on Hunter panels - which are even 
worse than SIPS because they have no lumber at 
the edges in the rafter orientation like SIPS do. 
We used the large surface area mounts like 
Ecofasten or Rapid Foot thare intended for metal 
roofs and instead modified them to work with SIPS 
by changing the screw lengths and patterns.


We used EcoFasten's products: 
http://www.ecofastensolar.com/our-products/eco-fasten


You could also use UNIRACs rapid foot or 
equivalent.  We then customized the screw pattern 
such that every other screw was a short or long 
one - the short ones going into the top sheathing 
and the long ones going into the base sheathing 
(and/or rafters if you need to) that the Hunter 
or SIP sits on.


We also then made sure to install long screws 
that go down into the lower sheathing underneath 
the steel plate of the ecofasten - that way the 
compression force is transferred below.  And then 
more long screws aboveand through the plate.  You 
can even plan to hit rafters below if  you really 
plan ahead or do it during new construction. 
You have to do the calcs on what the foam can 
handle for psi and what uplift you need, etc. 
Bring in an engineer on this.


We used 30' centers - it's very expensive - but 
the idea is to distribute the weight - kind of 
like an S5 approach.  We had an engineer do the 
calcs.


Best of luck!

Send $ to Haiti,

Jeff C.





Alan,

Thanks for the correction, I did in fact 
use the blue 'roof grip screws' with neopreme 
washers provided by DPW for use in OSB.  I 
better go chug more Ginko.


Bill

Feather River Solar Electric
4291 Nelson St.
Taylorsville, CA  95983

- Original Message -
From: mailto:al...@positiveenergysolar.comAllan Sindelar
To: mailto:re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.orgRE-wrenches
Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited

Just a note of caution here: Tech screws are 
Tek screws, which are essentially a sheet 
metal thread following a pilot drill point, on a 
hardened shank. They are intended for mounting 
only into metal, not wood; the drill point isn't 
designed to self-pilot into wood, and the drill 
section is too large in diameter for wood.


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Allan Sindelar
mailto:al...@positiveenergysolar.comal...@positiveenergysolar.com
NABCEP Certified Photovoltaic Installer
EE98J Journeyman Electrician
Positive Energy, Inc.
3201 Calle Marie
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507
505 424-1112
http://www.positiveenergysolar.com/www.positiveenergysolar.com



frenergy wrote:


Luke,


Direct Power and Water has an optional 
mounting foot with five holes in it for what I 
think Jeff Randall there referred to as 'Tech' 
screws to use in the field between rafters. They 
are referred to as 'easy feet'.  It is designed 
to only attach into the roof decking, which I'm 
pretty sure only required 1/2 OSB.  He claims 
the same or better pullout values as one lag per 
regular foot...there may also be tighter spacing 
involved for the feet.  The choices are   1 1/2 
or 3 long, has a self tapping point so no 
pre-drill.  Add some of the peel and stick 
mastic and it's a fast install.


Bill

Feather River Solar Electric
4291 Nelson St.
Taylorsville, CA  95983



- Original Message -
From: mailto:sgsrenewab...@gmail.comLuke Christy
To: 
mailto:re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.orgre-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org

Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 8:24 PM
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Mounting to SIPs, revisited

Esteemed Wrenches,

We have a PV job in the works that will require 
mounting racking to several roofs that consist 
of asphalt shingles laid over SIP panels. The 
panels are standard 10 nominal thickness, with 
9-1/4 of foam sandwiched by 1/2 OSB on each 
side. The rub is that the underside of the 
panels will be the finished ceiling (with 5/8 
of wood over the OSB).


I found a couple of threads in the archives 
discussing mounting to SIPs, but most comments 
suggest  through-bolting, and that is not an 
attractive option in this case due to the 

Re: [RE-wrenches] Walt Ratterman

2010-01-18 Thread Jeff Lahl
Walt is still believed to be buried in the Hotel Montana.  Lots of rescue
teams on site and people still being found alive.  A team of Walt's friends
and associates has now also arrived on site.  Hope is still very much alive.

There is a facebook page devoted to the rescue - there is a tremendous
network of people hoping and praying and supporting the process.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walt-Ratterman-Haiti-Mission

 

 

Jeff Lahl  |  Project Director

Solar Electric Light Fund  |   http://www.self.org/ www.self.org

p 808-874-5706

f  808-874-5706  



energy is a human rightT

 

 https://www.givedirect.org/give/givefrm.asp?Action=GCCID=868AVS=OFF
Change a life. Change the world

 

 

 

From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org
[mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Marco
Mangelsdorf
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 9:19 AM
To: 'RE-wrenches'
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Walt Ratterman

 

I heard that fellow Wrench Walt Ratterman is MIA in Haiti.

 

Anyone have any news?

 

marco

 

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[RE-wrenches] Capacity loss due to rapid discharge

2010-01-18 Thread Kent Osterberg




Hugh,

You may be interested in this article "A critical review of using the
Peukert equation for determining the remaining capacity of lead-acid
and lithium-ion batteries" by Dennis Doerffel and Suleiman Abu Sharkh
from the School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton. It
is available from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science
for a small fee. If the link does not work, just search for the
lead author's last name.

The authors describe testing lead acid batteries at high rates of
discharge from fully discharged down to the point that the terminal
voltage is 10.0 volts. After letting the batteries rest, they
continued to discharge further at a lower rate until the terminal
voltage was again 10.0 volts. Results were compared to discharging at
the slow rate only. The total amphours delivered when a low discharge
rate follows a high discharge were less by 5 to 10%. With 10%
associated with a C2 and C/20 discharge of a 17 AH battery and 5%
associated with a C/1.2 and C/13 discharge of a 65 ah battery.

In short, the capacity loss indicated by Peukert only applies to a
continuous discharge rate. When a slow discharge follows a rapid
discharge, the total number of amphours delivered is almost the same
(just 5 to 10% less) as if the discharge happened at entirely at the
slow rate. If you were estimating how far your electric car would
travel, that 5 or 10% may be critical. For the rates of discharge and
depths of discharge normally used for off-grid homes the "lost"
capacity is probably even less.

Kent Osterberg
Blue Mountain Solar, Inc.



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Re: [RE-wrenches] EnPhase/Racking Best Fit

2010-01-18 Thread Nick Soleil
I was involved in Beta Tests for Clicksys, and had to deal with mounting 
Enphase with the Clicksys Beam, which was a pain.  In the end, we decided not 
to use the product.  When you lay out the rails, the rail splices can't be on 
top of the feet?  The amount of planning and layout makes it not ideal.  I 
second the other comments about the clips, too.

 Nick Soleil
Project Manager
Advanced Alternative Energy Solutions, LLC
PO Box 657
Petaluma, CA 94953
Cell:   707-321-2937
Office: 707-789-9537
Fax:707-769-9037





From: Dana Brandt d...@ecotechenergy.com
To: RE-wrenches re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org
Sent: Mon, January 18, 2010 10:06:18 AM
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] EnPhase/Racking Best Fit

I'll second that! We had good luck with the little clips for the Enphase, but 
there's a lot of opportunity for having to do a lot of work over again if 
anything goes wrong. 

This is my disappointment with the Clicksys in general. In my opinion, the 
genious of the SolarMount is the T-bolt that allows you to install top clamps 
as you go instead of having to slide everything down from the end of the rail. 
Clicksys does away with this. When you add in the Enphase to the Clicksys, you 
have a very non-flexible installation. All the top clamps have to be in place 
before the inverters are installed. If you miss or break a clamp you have to 
take all your inverters off and slide all the clips off to get a new one in 
place.

Also on my list of why I'm underwhelmed by Clicksys is that with our 25lb snow 
load here you need an attachment every 24. In my mind this makes them only 
practical on standing seam roof. 

I'm a big fan of Unirac, but I think they missed on this one.

Dana


Dana Brandt
Ecotech Energy Systems, LLC
www.ecotechenergy.com
d...@ecotechenergy.com
360.510.0433



On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 3:06 PM, solarepiph...@gmail.com wrote:

Erika,

I can tell you from experience that the Unirac Clicksys is NOT an ideal 
candidate for Enphase applications. The reason is that if you have a problem 
with a mounting clip that galls up or breaks, you have to disassemble the 
entire racks worth of sliders and microinverters in order to replace. The 
only way to slide on a replacement is from the end of the rail or a splice 
point. Really a pain.

Take care,

Eric Thomas
Founder
Solar Epiphany LLC
Seattle
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-Original Message-
From: re-wrenches-requ...@lists.re-wrenches.org
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:04:07
To: re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org
Subject: RE-wrenches Digest, Vol 3, Issue 63

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: trapeziod modules (William Dorsett)
   2. Re: enphase and racks (frenergy)
   3. Re: discharging Rolls batteries (Bruce Geddes)


--

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:58:29 -0800 (PST)
From: William Dorsett wmdors...@sbcglobal.net
To: RE-wrenches re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org,
jry...@netscape.com
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] trapeziod modules
Message-ID: 691869.43614...@web81907.mail.mud.yahoo.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Jeff, Sharp is the only manufacturer I know of that puts out at least 
triangular modules that can come close to forming a trapezoid.

Bill Dorsett
SunwrightS
1715 Leavenworth
Manhattan, KS 66502
Home/Office 785/539=1956
Cell 785/564-2583
wmdors...@sbcglobal.net

See Amory Lovins July 08 on Charlie Rose
http://www.charlierose.com/guests/amory-lovins

--- On Fri, 1/15/10, Jeff Yago jry...@netscape.com wrote:


From: Jeff Yago jry...@netscape.com
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] trapeziod modules
To: RE-wrenches re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org
Date: Friday, January 15, 2010, 9:27 PM


I have a demonstration project that will require only a handfull of modules 
that need to form a round circle when grouped together.? I need a complete 
circle that will have a combined output of 400 to 600 watts, depending on 
module size.? I have seen several large modules this shape in recent articles 
about solar sun-flower shaped street lighting, but I do not need anything 
that large and its not for a street light application.? Anybody know a 
supplier that will sell in small quantities?

Thanks,

Jeff Yago

Re: [RE-wrenches] EnPhase/Racking Best Fit

2010-01-18 Thread William Miller

Friends:

The T-bolts scare me.  If you get them rotated fully, there is but a little 
nib on each end of the T that constitutes your entire hold down 
strength.  Fail to rotate them fully and your hold down strength is 
compromised.


DPW has a new approach I inspected at the SPI:  The hold down clip is 
indexed to the T-bolt.  The T bolt must be fully rotated before the clip 
can be lowered between the modules.  I find this way 
more-better.  Another advantage to DPW clips:  they require 1/4 spacing 
instead of 1.


I prefer Unirac rail -- I might try substituting DPW hardware into Unirac 
rail.  Has anyone tried this?.


William Miller




At 10:12 AM 1/18/2010, you wrote:
I'll second that! We had good luck with the little clips for the Enphase, 
but there's a lot of opportunity for having to do a lot of work over again 
if anything goes wrong.


This is my disappointment with the Clicksys in general. In my opinion, the 
genious of the SolarMount is the T-bolt that allows you to install top 
clamps as you go instead of having to slide everything down from the end 
of the rail. Clicksys does away with this. When you add in the Enphase to 
the Clicksys, you have a very non-flexible installation. All the top 
clamps have to be in place before the inverters are installed. If you miss 
or break a clamp you have to take all your inverters off and slide all the 
clips off to get a new one in place.


Also on my list of why I'm underwhelmed by Clicksys is that with our 25lb 
snow load here you need an attachment every 24. In my mind this makes 
them only practical on standing seam roof.


I'm a big fan of Unirac, but I think they missed on this one.

Dana
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